Teachers' workshop featuring the Arroyo Seco will be held February 3 and 10, 2007.

“The River Runs Through It: Charles Lummis and the Culture of the Arroyo Seco” is an LAUSD multicultural-general salary point class convening at Audubon Center in Debs Park on Saturday, February 3 with wilderness expert Christopher Nyerges, Audubon Naturalist/Teacher Jeff Chapman, Tim Brick of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, Don Newton, author, and a hands-on workshop with Julia Bogany, member of the Tribal Council of the Tongva/Gabrielino.

Saturday, February 10, tours of Heritage Square Museum , Lummis Homes and Gardens and Judson Studios, conversations with poet Suzanne Lummis, and presentations by Scenic Byways Advocate Nicole Possert and long time resident/historian Virginia Neeley will round out the curriculum.

The $65 workshop fee covers materials, museums, and tours. Participants are urged to bring their lunches to enjoy in the gardens at Audubon and Lummis Home.

Maximum 40 participants.

Registration and fee due January 26, 2007 (on site registration by special permission).

Download the Flyer and Registration Info

For more information contact:

Carmela Gomes
carmela.gomes@lausd.net
323 / 257-1900

Workshop 2007 Presenter Bios

Anne Leach, the Tour Director at Judson Studios, works with Professor Ronald E. Steen, an art historian and art educator, who is the Director of Programming and Education at Judson Studios as well as the curator of the of the gallery that the Studios maintain. Anne is also a docent at the Gamble House in Pasadena, one of the museums included in the Museums of the Arroyo tour.

Tim Brick is the managing director of the Arroyo Seco Foundation and represents Pasadena on the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. He speaks regularly on the issues of the Arroyo Seco and is a leader in the effort to restore and enhance the natural splendor of the Arroyo for future generations.

Jeff Chapman, Master Teacher Naturalist, Audubon Center at Debs Park , has been working in the field of environmental education for over ten years. He spent the early days of his career on Catalina Island developing and delivering programs for the local community and island visitors. Jeff left Catalina to join Audubon on their fledging project, then known as, The Los Angeles Audubon Center. He helped create programming in Debs Park for the urban community the center was later built to serve. Jeff then took on the role of Watershed Coordinator for the Arroyo Seco watershed, where he informed local residents on the importance of water conservation and created a volunteer water quality monitoring program. Jeff recently returned to the Audubon Center at Debs Park as the Master Teacher Naturalist. In this position, Jeff is poised to lead staff in a reinvigoration of programs offered at the Center. Jeff currently lives in Eagle Rock and is involved in numerous local environmental issues.

Christopher Nyerges has taken over 30,000 children and adults on Wild Food Outings, Survival Skills Outings, and other field trips and outdoor programs, since 1974. He has worked with such groups as WTI Inc. (original sponsor of the outings), Tree People, Southwest Museum , Boy Scouts of America, The Sierra Club, Elder Hostel, and many colleges, schools, churches, and libraries. He is the author of seven books, including Guide to Wild Foods and Enter the Forest. He is currently the editor of “ Wilderness Way ” magazine.

Patti Sun, Naturalist with the Audubon Center at Debs Park.

Julia Bogany has been a teacher, director and administrator for thirty-five years. She is the Native American Consultant for the Riverside School District and the University of Oklahoma Trauma Center. She is the Cultural Affairs chair for the Gabrieleno/Tongva Tribe of San Gabriel . She is on the Air Quality Board, Human Relations of Pomona Board, Riverside Municipal Museum Multicultural Board, Chaffey College President's Equity Council Board and others. She has done Native Education for the past 10 years and taken several classes is very active in the Native communities where she runs several youth groups, teaches adults First Aid and CPR arthritis self-management, health data, nutrition, and FASD. Julia likes to remind people that she is the mother of four, Grandmother of twelve, Great-Grandmother of four.

Don Newton, artist and poet, has been engaged in his creative work in Los Angeles since 1967. Don is a community activist who brought his upbringing in Mexico, Brazil and Texas to the political arena. He graduated from Columbia University School of General Studies and became an activist in New York and later when he worked as a machinist in Los Angeles. He has exhibited locally in the Rock Rose Gallery and the Blue Chip Gallery in Highland Park. Don self-published “The Beginning of the World” in 1995.

Michelle Clark After early careers in teaching and the film industry, Michele has worked for more twenty-five years for non-profit organizations, as Executive Assistant for the Performing Arts Council of The Music Center and Occidental College, as Associate Director of Development for the Visiting Nurse Foundation and, since 1996, for the Historical Society of Southern California where she coordinates the Educational and Community Outreach programs.

Brian Sheridan is the Director of Development for Heritage Square . He graduated from UCSD in 2000 with a degree in Political Science and International Relations, with a minor in history. He spent some time in Washington, DC , teaching high school students about politics then worked in Los Angeles with SRO Housing for in the development of housing for homeless people. In August of 2004 Brian began at Heritage Square which he has come to know and love for its unique way of interpreting the history of Southern California and its one-of-a-kind role in saving cultural and historical buildings. Brian's number one goal is to get enough funding for the “A Golden Vision: the Growth of Southern California” project.

Suzanne Lummis' last book of poetry, In Danger, was published as part of Heyday Books' California Poetry Series, and individual poems appear in leading literary magazines in the U.S. and England, including The Antioch Review , The Hudson Review and Agenda. For many years she taught beginning through advanced poetry writing for The UCLA Extension Writers' Program, and has developed several new classes for them, most recently "Poetry Goes to the Movies: The Poem Noir".   Suzanne is the director of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival and literary director for The Arroyo Arts Collective's biannual Poetry in the Windows project.  The West Coast's essential guide to poetry, Poetry Flash, recently described her in these terms, "Suzanne Lummis cuts a kind of diva-impresario figure on the L.A. literary scene as writer, influential teacher, performer, poetic instigator and member of the language-driven performance group, Nearly Fatal Women."

Nicole Possert is the volunteer marketing representative for the Arroyo Seco Parkway National Scenic Byway.  She played a pivotal role in securing this national designation in 2002 as a way to assist in the preservation of the historic Arroyo Seco Parkway (SR110) and the Arroyo Seco's natural, historic and cultural attractions.  She is past president of the Highland Park Heritage Trust where she still remains on the board, and a published writer and speaker on the Arroyo Seco region.

Virginia Neeley is a third generation inhabitant of the Arroyo. She became interested in the history of the Arroyo when she became involved as a volunteer researcher for the historic building survey in Northeast Los Angeles. This activity became the basis for the Highland Park Heritage Trust where she is a board member. Her family boasts five generations living in the Arroyo. Virginia has a wealth of photographs and information stemming from the last 25 years of activity in the historic photograph collections of the Huntington Library, the Southern California Historical Society, the Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society, and the USC Special Historical Collections.

Ann Walnum is a community leader who, following a 29 year elementary school teaching career, has been involved in organizing volunteers and tours through the Highland Park Heritage Trust where she is as a board member, and as co-founder of the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition. Docent training at Judson Studios has developed in her an appreciation of Arroyo Culture and the artistry and craftsmanship of stained glass. Ann is also an accomplished violinist, teaching violin and piano to young people in the Northeast and playing with the Rio Hondo Symphony.

Charles Fisher is Chair of the Board of the Highland Park Overlay Zone concerned with the preservation and restoration of the historic heritage of Highland Park as well as a member of the board of the Highland Park Heritage Trust. Charlie has personally been responsible for seventy-seven monument nominations in the City of Los Angeles including the Arroyo Seco Railroad Bridge, Casa de Adobe, Ziegler House and the Arroyo Seco Bank Building (now Union Bank) at the corner of York Boulevard and Figueroa Street in Highland Park. He is presently consulting with Jones and Stokes which is an environmental company responsible for historic resource evaluation. He is a long-time, knowledgeable community leader.

Evelyn Ortiz Winchester is a native Angeleno, born in East Los Angeles in 1956 and grew up in South Pasadena from 1960-1984 next to the York Blvd. Bridge along the Arroyo Seco. Her house in South Pasadena was built in 1887 and was the original toll house that people paid their way to and from Garvanza and South Pasadena. She is working on her master's degree in art education/administration at Cal State L.A. where she also teaches a course to new students on surviving college. She is also an artist/muralist currently working in stained glass and watercolors. She lives in La Crescenta with her 22-year old son Matthew.

Highland Park Heritage Trust has as its mission to preserve the heritage of Los Angeles' Arroyo Seco Communities (Highland Park , Garvanza, Mt. Washington, Hermon, Montecito Heights, and Cypress Park) through education, advocacy and preservation projects for the benefit of present and future generations.

Carmela Gomes, the instructional designer for this workshop, is a retired classroom teacher who instructs teachers through the Instructional Technology Branch/UPDATE, of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and as a Coach for the District Intern/Acts program. She has a BA in Social Studies from Montclair State University, New Jersey and holds life credentials in New Jersey and California. Carmela was the Teacher of the Year, 2003, California Association for the Gifted, Mission District and a nominee for the 2000-2001 National Teachers' Hall of Fame. She completed her classroom career at Nightingale Middle School teaching 6 th grade Humanities. Carmela is the 2007 President for the Highland Park Heritage Trust.